Bitcoin went on a massive surge on Tuesday, reaching its highest level since May, while other cryptocurrencies suffered losses.
It rose beyond $57,600 on Tuesday morning, as investors look forward to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) approval in the coming weeks of a Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF).
By Tuesday night, however, Bitcoin slid 0.77 percent to $56,337.77, Coindesk reported.
Ethereum and Dogecoin prices dropped, with ETH plunging 3.39 percent to $3,475 and DOGE falling 5.98 percent to $0.22. By night time, according to Coindesk, ETH regained its bearings and was up 0.60 percent to $3,521.75, while DOGE also climbed 0.86 percent to $0.229.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Says Bitcoin Is 'Worthless'
Despite Bitcoin's impressive milestone, however, investment expert and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon reiterated that the cryptocurrency is "worthless," equating trading the token with smoking cigarettes, Fox Business reported.
While speaking at a virtual event organized by the Institute of International Finance, Dimon said that he personally thinks that Bitcoin is "worthless" and said, "I don't want to be a spokesman for that, I don't care. It makes no difference to me."
Bitcoin flexed its power on Tuesday as other altcoins took beatings. Crypto analysts forecast a continuing increase in value, possibly reaching an all-time high of about $63,000 this quarter, Fox Business further noted.
Bitcoin's rally was impressive as it happened "in the face of a broader risk-off environment" in bonds and equities, as cryptos are apparently detaching from the equities markets, Fox Business quoted a Coinbase newsletter to institutional clients. Coinbase added that it sees BTC "clearly lead this market" as shown by Bitcoin dominance attaining multi-month highs.
The SEC is expected to announce its decision on the Bitcoin ETFs by next week. However, these ETFs are based on Bitcoin Futures and would not directly invest on Bitcoin, Yahoo! Finance noted. SEC chair Gary Gensler expressed support for ETFs that would invest in futures contracts instead of Bitcoin because of heightened investor protections.
Bitcoin ETF Leads to Broader Mainstream Use of Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin ETF's approval is considered a major milestone for the cryptocurrency to become an accepted mainstream financial asset, thus allowing more people to enter the cryptocurrency market.
As other tokens have dropped in value, including Cardano and XRP, one coin has also experienced a massive surge.
Shiba Inu, the Ethereum-based alternative to Dogecoin, skyrocketed to 15th place among cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization, touting $11.85 billion in market cap. The meme token soared in October, surging about 300 percent this month.
A tweet from Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk helped in Shiba Inu's rise, showing a picture of his puppy, which is clearly a Shiba Inu breed. Aside from this tweet, no other factor is seen to lead to the coin's ascent, which is akin to the original meme token Dogecoin's rise at the start of 2021.
Dogecoin also soared from a mere $0.01 in January to an all-time high of $0.74 in May before it plummeted in the next months due to several factors, including China's cryptocurrency ban and further tweets from Musk.
